Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

Crane Fluid has been moving manufacturing process away from Ipswich – where it used to employ some 700 workers – to cheaper foreign labour markets for a number of years and will now close all its production processes there. Of the 286 staff currently in Ipswich, 210 work in production-related positions.

The announcement comes just days after parent company, Crane Co, announced the $36 million (£17.9m) sale of all its buildings and land at the Nacton Road site to Borderbeach Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Allied Property and Leisure Ltd.

The Ipswich facility manufactures a variety of valves and fittings used in controlling the flow of liquids and natural gas.

Crane Ltd will retain its Head Office in Ipswich, which means Finance, IT, Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, Sales and Customer Service will largely be unaffected though it will move to new office accommodation as soon as suitable premises become available.

The firm also said it intends to maintain the manufacture of its Wask range of products in the UK, though as it would be impractical to continue this as a standalone operation, it will transfer and integrate it into its Hitchin facility. Details of jobs here have not been disclosed.

“With the sale of the Nacton Road site we now believe that it is appropriate and necessary to further rationalise our manufacturing and regrettably our proposals will mean the closure of a number of activities and a number of redundancies,” said Crane Fluids’ managing director, Peter Wilson.

“Over recent years we have moved certain of our manufacturing processes to lower cost countries and this has helped us to remain competitive in certain of our markets. We hope that a number of people that are employed in this area will accept our offer of transferring with this business to Hitchin.

“The manufacture of malleable iron fittings will cease during the second half of 2008. We will continue to supply our customers with these products from our lower cost sources. At the same time production of malleable iron valves will also cease, as will the manufacture of large bronze valves with the manufacturing of both products being transferred to other Crane facilities.”

It is anticipated that the current operations will continue unchanged during Q1 2008, during which time the company will start a formal 90 day consultation process with employee representatives. The company says it has advised the external trade unions of its proposals and offered to meet with them and the local representatives in the New Year.

Crane Co sold the Nacton site as part of a worldwide restructuring of its remaining foundry operations.  Crane will lease part of the property for up to two years until the ongoing manufacturing and office activities are transferred to new premises.

Eric Fast,  Crane Co president and CEO, said: “The sale of this property is consistent with our strategy of consolidating manufacturing operations to reduce costs, while at the same time continuing to provide our customers with high quality products.

“This restructuring is another important step toward reaching our previously announced goal of achieving a 15 per cent operating margin in our Fluid Handling segment."

Founded in 1855, Crane Co. is a diversified manufacturer of highly engineered industrial products under five business segments: Aerospace & Electronics, Fluid Handling, Engineered Materials, Merchandising Systems, and Controls with approximately 12,000 employees world wide.